Hope and change fever reached a frenzied zenith in the summer of 2008, when then-Senator Barack Obama accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president. Interest in Obama's address ran so high that his campaign decided to eschew tradition and relocate the historic speech to Denver's NFL stadium, which could accommodate tens of thousands of additional Obamaphiles. And what a spectacle it was. The infamous Greek columns. Nearly 85,000 screaming fans. Media saturation. Unconstrained Obama adulation:
Four years hence, America faces a sputtering economy, persistently high unemployment, a shrinking workforce, and rapidly mounting debt. President Obama is unpopular. His signature policy achievement is widely loathed. The nation is hurting and deeply disenchanted with Washington. Against that backdrop, might the leader who offered so many soaring, unfulfilled promises as a candidate summon the humility to confine his ego to a mere basketball arena packed with cheering supporters this fall? No, sir:
Hoping to summon the energy surrounding his 2008 speech at the Democratic National Convention, President Obama will again accept his party’s nomination for president next September at a football stadium that seats nearly 80,000 people. The president will deliver his acceptance speech at Bank of America Stadium - home of the Carolina Panthers - in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Democratic National Convention Committee announced Tuesday. In 2008, Obama accepted his party’s nomination at Denver’s Mile High Stadium (home of the Denver Broncos) instead of the much smaller Pepsi Center where the rest of the convention was held...The rest of this year’s Democratic convention will be held at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, as 20,000-seat basketball and hockey arena.
To recap, this venue isn't quite grand enough for our president:
His campaign believes this location is more befitting a man of such historical stature and unique charm:
How appropriate. The president will host an extravagant festival in his own honor at a stadium that was chosen, in part, for its ability to accommodate more super-wealthy donors in luxury suites, and that happens to be named after a big bank that received billions in bailout money, and was recently bullied into reversing a new debit card fee precipitated by one of Obama's "accomplishments." The president will undoubtedly use this big moment to lament inequality, satiate his "fairness" fetish, and paint his Republican opponent as out of touch with ordinary Americans. The irony, hypocrisy, and off-the-charts self regard couldn't be any more evident.
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